Dr.
Zhang graduated from Yunnan University with a bachelor’s degree in
Chemistry in 1985. He obtained his Master’s (1988) and Ph.D. (1994)
degrees in Phytochemistry at Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), the
Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was a faculty member
(Assistant/Associate/Full Professor) at KIB during 1991 to 2002, and a
research faculty member (Research Assistant/Associate Professor) in the
College of Pharmacy, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) during
2003-2011. As PI or Co-I, Dr. Zhang has been involved in a number of
diverse research programs, including drug discovery of natural products,
development of alternative medicines, organic synthesis and
biosynthesis of natural products, both at KIB and UIC.

Dr.
Zhang has more than 25 years of research experience in the isolation,
identification, structure elucidation, analysis, synthesis and
biological evaluation of natural products and other small molecules,
leading to the isolation of more than 200 new molecules and publication
of more than 110 peer reviewed papers and several patents. Many of these
compounds showed biological activities against cancer, tuberculosis,
malaria and viruses, and some of them have been evaluated in in vivo studies.
His current research interest is focused on natural products drug
discovery from natural resources, as well as the development of
botanical dietary supplements from herbal medicines. Specifically, Dr.
Zhang is interested in finding natural lead compounds from plant and
microbial organisms; and in developing dietary supplements from
traditional herbal medicines against different disease targets such as
cancer, HIV, HCV, bird flu, Ebola/Marburg, TB, dental bacteria, and
cancer chemoprevention.

Funded Projects

Project 1

Title: Discovery of Aryl Naphthalide Lignans as Potential Anti-HIV Inhibitors from the

Soejarto DD*, Gyllenhaal C, Riley MC, Zhang HJ. Ethnobotany of Natural Products, in Natural Products, edited by Pezzuto, John and Kato, Massuo Jorge, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK, [http://www.eolss.net], 2011.